Speaking to reporters Saturday night for the first time since James Harden was traded to the Sixers, Nets star Kevin Durant said he didn’t realize that Harden was unhappy in Brooklyn until he saw media reports over the past week, writes Nick Friedell of ESPN.
Durant is rehabbing a sprained left knee that has sidelined him since Jan. 15 and has limited the time he spends with teammates. He was on the bench Thursday night for the first time since being injured.
“I wasn’t around the team to really, really see the vibe,” Durant said. “But I know the losses hurt us, and I know my injury might have hurt the team a bit not being around. And then Kyrie [Irving] in and out the lineup. But I didn’t really get a feel for the team because I wasn’t around.”
Friedell states that Harden seemed fully committed to the Nets until recently, noting that just a week and a half ago he said Brooklyn had enough talent to compete for a title with a full roster. However, Harden decided to make a direct request this week to general manager Sean Marks and team owner Joe Tsai to send him to Philadelphia.
Durant doesn’t know what changed, but said he won’t be reaching out to Harden to get an explanation of why he felt he had to leave.
“James doesn’t have to explain anything to anybody,” Durant said. “He’s his own man. He makes his decisions on his career by himself. He doesn’t owe anybody an explanation, and I wasn’t looking for one. I’m just glad that we got this thing done and now we’re able to move forward and get some of this noise away, and I’m sure he would feel the same way. But from around our team and around our group, there’s noise about what may happen. So I’m glad we can push through that.”
There have been reports that Durant talked to Harden recently in an effort to convince him to stay at least through the end of the season. Durant refused to confirm that and added that nothing he could have said would have changed Harden’s mind.
“I think once a person gets to that decision of ‘I’m unhappy,’ I think he’s gone through a lot of steps to get there,” Durant said. “So no matter what I say or try to convince someone — I’m not saying I did this, but this is just my theory on this — no matter what I say or do to try to convince someone to change their mood from being unhappy to happy, I think that’s when I’m pretty late to the party. He’s made his decision. I’m sure people make their decision before they get to that mode of being unhappy. I didn’t have any conversations with James up until then. I thought everything was solid. I don’t do any convincing. I’m sure you make those choices and decisions on your own as an individual. Me as a friend, I just have to accept it.”
With the Harden distraction gone, the Nets now have to focus on turning around their season. Brooklyn has fallen into eighth place in the East after 10 straight losses, and there’s no definite date on when Durant might be able to resume playing or when Ben Simmons will join the Nets.
Durant said he’s focused on getting the Nets back on the right path and didn’t express any regrets over the breakup of the Big Three, who played only 16 games together but were 13-3 as a group.
“I feel like the basketball we played was a good brand of basketball while we were out on the floor, so I can live with what we did,” Durant said. “The outside noise and all that other stuff that happened, and how people feel about their time here … but once we actually laced them up and played basketball together, I think it was a good brand. So you could live with that.”
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